Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Hush, Be Still, It's 9/11

People all over the world are writing about what ordinary life things they were doing at that moment. They are telling poignant stories of how their lives changed forever.

All over the world today, people are pausing, remembering, wondering. Praying and hoping.

At the same time, all over the world, people are going about their ordinary lives doing their every day things exactly as they did before that moment and then, eventually, again, after.

I could tell you all about what I was doing on that day, at that moment. I could tell you what it felt like and how I, and the world, "recovered" from it.

I could tell you about how, for a number of years, I haven't wanted to think about, watch it, read about it or even let it exist really. I probably would have let it go that way for a long time, except Little Mr.'s teachers assigned him to interview people about that day, that moment. So we grown up three, shared in our busy noisy kitchen on a sunny afternoon. We pulled out the newspaper from that day, the one we've held all this time.

I was up early this morning and thought of it. Almost right away, I thought, it's 9/11.

Over coffee and rushing kids off to school and trying to get to my appointments on time, I thought, how very odd and in congruent, how off kilter and strange that we go on living out ordinary days on "special" days like this.

In the beginning, ordinary was what kept me from overly freaking out about the events. I remember, maybe not on 9/11, but perhaps a day or two later, realizing that I had to stop looking at it. I had to turn it off. The TV. The radio. I had to stop reading the paper and catch my breath. I had to do something ordinary and routine to keep moving and keep living because I was still alive.

Today, 11 years later, my thoughts are more simple in a way.

All day, I've only wanted to say, "hush, shush, stop, be still, be silent...this is 9/11".